Equal Opportunities Committee, 02 Dec 2008

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Official Report 272KB pdf

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Equality Bill

Agenda item 4 is evidence on the United Kingdom Government's proposed equality bill, which will be a major piece of legislation that aims to strengthen existing equality law. I am pleased to welcome to the committee Vera Baird QC MP, who is the Solicitor General. She is accompanied by Janice Shersby, who is the director of policy and deputy head of the Government Equalities Office—we did not know that you were coming, too, but we are very pleased that both of you are here. I hope that your journey was not too horrendous; I understand that your flight was late.

After you have made an opening statement, we will put to you some of the questions that we asked stakeholders to submit—they certainly did not hold back. If there are any issues that are not covered in your opening statement or in the questions, could they be dealt with at a later stage if we submit them to you?

Yes, of course.

That would be terrific.

Thank you very much and good morning. I am sorry for my late arrival—we had a bit of a hiccup with aviation, but we rectified it. We flew here by Air France, slightly oddly, but we did not have to come—

Via Paris?

No more stealing my jokes, thank you.

Thanks for the invitation to come and talk to you. The UK Government takes its equalities responsibilities extremely seriously. We are committed to creating a fair society, with fair chances and fair rules for everyone. In order for society to be fair, we must tackle inequality and root out discrimination.

There is no doubt at all that the current legislation, which has been on our books for a long time, has done much to drive a culture of equalities, but there is undoubtedly a lot still to do. We intend that the flagship equality bill will kick-start our renewed efforts to promote equality. Equality benefits individuals. It should not matter who someone is, where they come from, what they look like or what they believe—everyone should have the same fair chances in life. In addition, a diverse workforce is a stronger workforce, and a more equal society is more at ease with itself.

We have committed to introducing the equality bill, which will do three things. First, it will strengthen and extend the law, when that is necessary to tackle discrimination that still exists. For example, it provides for an expanded public sector duty that will tackle discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation, age, religion or belief, or because they are going through gender reassignment.

Secondly, the bill will streamline the law by reducing the number of pieces of legislation on the issue—there are nine of them—which have all been passed at various stages in the history of equalities and so are quite differently founded. The bill will merge them into a single act. You might think that that is particularly important in the current climate, when resources are stretched. Employer and employee alike will benefit from a simpler, clearer legal framework for equality.

Thirdly, the bill will support our wider work to help people and businesses through tough times and emerge stronger. We will work with businesses, trade unions and delivery partners such as our Equality and Human Rights Commission to provide practical guidance and day-to-day advice to help make equality a reality.

I am very aware of the important role that this committee and Scottish ministers play in promoting and monitoring the observance of equal opportunities requirements in Scotland, and I am glad to have the opportunity of meeting the committee today to share our ideas and experiences in this important field.

For an example of the problems that we still have, we can consider the gender pay gap. A comparison of the average hourly earnings of full-time men and women shows a gap of 17.1 per cent for the United Kingdom and 13.5 per cent for Scotland. The gap between full-time men and part-time women is 21 per cent in the UK and 16.7 per cent in Scotland. We have made significant progress, and Scotland is leading on that, but it must be confessed that neither of us is doing particularly brilliantly. Much more needs to be done.

I know that the committee is interested in our proposals on the public sector duty. I am keen to make progress in strengthening equality in the public sector—bringing together the three current duties on race, gender and disability, but without weakening any of them. That is a key part of the new bill. We will retain the existing structure of a general duty in primary legislation, but the general duty will be backed up by specific duties. We will preserve the power of Scottish ministers to set specific duties for Scottish bodies.

We regard the equality bill as a flagship piece of legislation, essential to our objective of creating a fairer society. I very much welcome the opportunity to discuss equality of opportunity further with you today.

Thank you for those introductory remarks. I invite Marlyn Glen to open our questioning.

Thank you for your opening comments—especially the reassurance that there will be no weakening of the general duties.

Will the bill cover all activities inside and outside the workplace, in both the public and private sectors? I presume that it will not. Will it offer the same protection to all the equalities strands?

As you rightly suggest, the coverage of the public and private sectors will not be comprehensive. However, the bill will cover all the existing strands and the existing areas of liability—save, I think, harassment outside of employment for sexual orientation and religion and belief. Janice Shersby will correct me if I am wrong.

No, that was correct.

You talk about covering all strands, but lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups and sexual orientation groups are concerned that transgender individuals are not covered by antidiscrimination legislation for school education. That, according to the Government's evidence, is because there are very few transgender school pupils—which, I accept, is true. However, if the aim is to cover all strands equally, surely transgender groups should be covered in schools just as the sexual orientation groups are.

You have just put your finger on a point that we stress: the welfare and care of school pupils are extensively covered by education legislation, and they are also covered by the Human Rights Act 1998. For the tiny number of children who are undergoing gender reassignment or are intending to undergo it, we think that the existing provisions are sufficient, allowing for a flexible, discreet and sensitive approach.

I understand that other legislation allows you to help transgender pupils, but those pupils might think it unfair that they are not being included with the others. They are not getting the extra protection.

I am not sure that they would get anything significantly more than is already offered. It is important to handle young people with discretion and sensitivity, and our education system has adequate resources to do that. There is also adequate legislative backing. We have no real fear that anyone is going to suffer. If we had such a fear, we would of course reconsider. However, we considered the issue in depth before reaching our conclusions.

Trevor Phillips, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, recently said that he wanted positive action for the people hardest hit by the current economic downturn—in particular, for white, working-class people who may feel threatened. That is stated on the commission's website, where Mr Phillips is quoted as saying that

"in some parts of the country, it is clear that what defines disadvantage won't be black or brown, it will be white. And we will have to take positive action to help some white groups".

Do those comments suggest that special measures that were previously targeted at ethnic minorities have failed in relation to other disadvantaged groups? Is that an underlying flaw in taking a multistrand approach?

I understand—and I was discussing with Trevor Phillips last week—the issues around socioeconomic wellbeing and socioeconomic disadvantage. He carried out the blue-sky thinking equalities review, and he thinks about the topic in very broad terms. We have a situation in which there is still a disadvantage in being a member of those strands, irrespective of educational attainment. For example, there is only one black minority ethnic High Court judge; there are relatively few women in FTSE 100 businesses; only 8 per cent of university vice-chancellors are women; and there is not one Asian member of Parliament. It is clear that discrimination—deliberate or inadvertent, however you regard it—is still at large, and that there remains a job to do across all those strands.

This certainly is not the time to abandon our duties to rectify such imbalances. An important aspect of our determination to continue to do that is the proposed right to use positive action when selecting people for employment, which will be a very useful tool. It is entirely voluntary, but it will allow a public or a private employer who is seeking to select somebody for a job to choose someone deliberately from an unrepresented sector if the candidates are of equal merit.

That could benefit women in relation to jobs that are currently mainly or wholly the preserve of men, but equally—in answer to your concerns about white males—it could help men. I am quite troubled, for example, by the area of primary school education, in which almost all teachers are women. When an employer is seeking someone new for a primary school role, the norm would be to look for a woman, because it is instinctive to follow what has been done already—to go with the flow and appoint somebody "like us".

The bill will offer the opportunity, when a man and a woman are equally well qualified for a post, for the employer to choose the man deliberately in order to give young boys a role model and to address the imbalance in their current workforce. That then indirectly affects the imbalance in employment in society.

As I am sure you know, it is still much harder for someone to get work if they are black or if they are disabled, and they are likely to earn less money. We have already mentioned the issue of equal pay in relation to women. All those strands remain overwhelmingly important. I do not think that Trevor Phillips was suggesting that there is another strand of discrimination that relates to white working-class people. He is addressing the broader issue of socioeconomic deprivation and the steps that need to be taken in the context of the economic downturn to ensure that we can protect the weakest right now.

You have specifically mentioned education and positive discrimination. Will the bill have an impact on the discrimination that exists within denominational schools with regard to promoted posts and opportunities? Will job opportunities be extended to those who are potentially discriminated against by the Act of Settlement 1701?

The Act of Settlement is certainly an issue that is under consideration, although not immediately within the context of the bill. We are talking about positive action, not positive discrimination. Although there are rights involving positive discrimination, in that disability discrimination requires positive discrimination for disabled people, it implies discrimination in favour of a group just because of membership of that group. Positive action involves putting merit first, and after that is measured as equal, giving employers the ability to favour an underrepresented group. There is a difference.

There are pretty limited exceptions to the equality legislation for religious schools. They are entitled to recruit teachers to teach religious education, and a very limited range of other teachers whose ability, capacity and will to promote the religious development of the school is necessary. Beyond that, there is no right to discriminate against any pupil or against any person in an employment opportunity. The exceptions are fairly limited right now, and that will not change.

That means that discrimination—if I may use the term—would continue.

I do not entirely regard it as discrimination. Our faith schools have their own internal integrity. They have an interest in ensuring that their religion permeates their education and that their ethics remain strong. Some very good schools are religious schools—I am sure that you have excellent religious schools in Scotland. There is a brilliant Catholic school in my constituency, which of course takes in non-Catholic children. The school regards itself as capable of being a strong and good influence on social cohesion, because it can hold on to its religious ethics. The ability to select—in that case—teachers who are Catholics, so that there should be no weakening of the school's religious ethic, does not seem unreasonable.

The committee has taken an interest in and had two round-table discussions on unpaid carers. In advance of the Queen's speech, is there a case for providing in the bill for carers of people who are elderly or have a degenerative disease? There are 660,000 unpaid carers in Scotland and the issue can affect anyone.

We have a strong commitment to carers. The community of carers has been identified during the past decade. Prior to that, it was not really identified as a community. People just assumed that they had a job to do if someone in their family or in their close remit was disabled and needed support, and they sought no rights for themselves. That has changed dramatically during the past decade, with the advent of carers allowance and opportunities for respite care and for carers to go forward in their own interests and undertake training and so on. We regard the issue as a completely separate tranche of legislation favouring carers, as and when—and in what way—we can help them optimally.

I imagine that many members will know about the case of Coleman v Attridge Law, in which a solicitor's clerk in London was not given appropriate flexibility to enable her to look after her disabled child. The European Court of Justice recently found that that was discrimination against her, by association with the disabled child. There is therefore now a line of discrimination, which is discrimination by association with a disabled person, and we intend to honour that in the bill. That will be immensely important for some carers.

We are considering how widely we should take forward such an approach. Coleman's rule is relevant only to people who are associated with someone who is disabled, but we think that such cases are likely not to be significantly different from those of someone who is associated with a person who needs extra support because they are older. Should we take the matter outside work horizons or leave it in employment, which is where Coleman is? We are considering carefully what to do in that regard, but members can see that there are good seeds for supporting carers.

The definition seems quite narrow and I would have thought that there is room to extend it.

Perhaps balancing the implications of Coleman with those of the current economic climate, will you comment on newspaper reports that some ministers want to retract commitments to extend flexible working hours and positive action?

I do not think that that was fairly and fully reported. I think that the minister in question said that at this time, when business is under extra pressure, we need to consider all pending regulation on business, to ascertain whether it is necessary to bring in regulation straight away or whether regulation will create a further encumbrance to which business must immediately attend, at a time when it wants to attend to its business.

There is no doubt at all that flexible working is going forward exactly as it has always been intended to do.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, there is a firm commitment to include flexible working in the forthcoming equality bill.

The Solicitor General indicated agreement.

You have already answered much of the question that I was about to ask about positive action, but I want further to explore two aspects. You said that positive action was voluntary for employers and therefore not enforceable. Could you expand on that? Also, are employers able to refer to underrepresentation only in their own workforce, or may they refer to wider, societal underrepresentation?

I cannot readily see how the positive action that is proposed could be enforced. It is a matter for the judgment of the interviewing panel, following a properly open selection process that results in two people each being a reasonable match for the job. It would be a matter of choosing to take a step to increase the representation of an underrepresented sector. It would be very difficult to enforce that in any real way.

The intention is that the provisions should apply to underrepresentation in the workforce in question, but one expects that it would be likely for that to move on into underrepresentation generally. I would think that it would be quite unusual for a workforce to be wholly unrepresentative of the imbalances in society generally.

The positive action provisions in the forthcoming bill are intended to allow positive action in the UK within the limits that are allowed under European law. In European law, organisations are not allowed systematically to take positive action in every case to favour a man or a woman in a work setting. Each case must be considered on its merits.

I do not think that it would be possible under European law to tell an employer that, as a matter of policy, they should—for example—always select a man for a primary school teacher post in every single case. That would not be permitted. The question of enforcement falls, in a sense.

I completely understand when you say positive action, rather than positive discrimination, but if we are working towards equality—I note your example of men working in primary schools—then perhaps stronger measures ought to be taken to enforce equality, although they might not appear in the forthcoming bill. If you were to enforce positive action, would that leave it open to people to go to an employment tribunal to claim discrimination? I am talking about favouring one person over another because of what is in the bill. Are the proposed provisions voluntary because there could be further problems if, under equality law, someone took the employer to a tribunal?

No, I do not think so. Once a right is in place, so that there is an entitlement to take positive action, the positive action is legitimised and it would not be actionable as an act of discrimination. One cannot rule out somebody trying but, ultimately, it would depend on a proper analysis of the situation as simply being an exercise of the entitlement. That is part of the point of enacting such a provision: it is so that there is a protection and so that people can feel free to redress imbalances. That is pretty important.

You make a powerful point about the need to enforce but, with amorphous and differently sized entities such as businesses, public sector authorities and schools, what is enforceable and what it is better simply to encourage is always quite a difficult point.

And it is a question of carrot and stick.

Yes—carrot and stick. We spend a lot of time arguing about that. To make the provision any kind of reality, we would have to publicise its availability strongly and make its virtues clear to those who make appointments—in particular the point that diverse workforces are stronger workforces. That is what we are principally relying on in that regard.

Could you clarify whether, given your earlier answer, a non-religious school could deny a promoted post to those who practise their religious faith?

Far be it from me to give you legal advice on a case, particularly as I am a criminal lawyer and not an employment lawyer. If you ever do a murder, give me a ring.

I will bear that in mind and get your number afterwards.

The specific exemptions are for religious schools, for the very purpose that I set out. It goes no further than that.

I will ask about gender and equal pay, which you mentioned in your opening statement. Decades have passed and yet women still do not have equal pay. You mentioned various figures. Given the persistence of the gender pay gap and the fact that the statutory code of practice on equal pay recommends equal pay audits as

"the most appropriate method of ensuring that a pay system delivers pay free from sex bias",

why does the UK Government not include a requirement for all employers to conduct equal pay audits in the bill? If it does not do that, we will still have a long way to go to closing the pay gap.

I will set out our approach to the problem, or issue. Complex pay audits have been undertaken in some places and have indeed borne fruit in terms of equality of pay, but others have not. In the latter case, the fairly lengthy process of job evaluation did not in itself make a significant difference to equal pay. We are in the process of putting in place a piece of work to try to evaluate, in a pointed way, whether equal pay audits do or do not work. If they are a mixed blessing—which, at present they seem to be––it would be onerous to impose a compulsory provision that may turn out not to be that fruitful on businesses of all shapes and sizes, from top to bottom, even if we were to set a lowish limit.

The fairly powerful view in the Government Equalities Office is that equal pay audits are not that fruitful. There are probably better ways of trying to do things. For instance, we think that it is possible to encourage progress by making the pay gap transparent, which at the moment it is not. If businesses had to declare their pay gap, that would make it visible and they would have to cope with the consequences of it being known.

A name-and-shame exercise.

I was just the tiniest bit misquoted in The Sunday Times last weekend on the subject of the pay gap. The Treasury has a 29 per cent pay gap whereas we in GEO—and when I say "we", it is Janice Shersby's department, but I am half in it for the purposes of leading on the bill, while remaining Solicitor General—has no pay gap. The Sunday Times put over what I said in slightly strong terms by having me say, "Which intelligent woman in her right mind would go and work at the Treasury when she could come and work for us?" That is correct, however, is it not?

Absolutely.

We are moving into an era—indeed, we have moved into it—where evaluating which company one wants to work for, invest in or do business or contract with is not simply based on value for money or business connections but on whether the company is environmentally sound, how it treats disabled people, how many BME people are on its staff and what its pay gap is. We can make the public sector post—to use a slogan—pay gap information on websites. In that way, we can make it clear what the gaps are. Of course, saying that implies that we have some way of encompassing in a simple way what the pay gap is. That is not in itself an easy task, but we are working on it, and if we can create something fairly simple and require the gap to be posted, there will clearly be pressure for change. For instance, if, of two businesses side by side, one has a sizeable pay gap and the other has none, there will obviously be pressure on the former to try to run its sizeable pay gap down.

That would just be the public sector. In the public sector in Scotland, something like 50,000 equal pay cases have been lodged, which is causing consternation in local councils. As you said in your opening remarks, Scotland is slightly ahead of the rest of the country, but the pay gap in the public sector seems to constitute systematic discrimination against women, who get lower pay for doing jobs of equal worth. I am worried about the Government's views on that because it has not introduced any measures to tackle it in the bill.

Particularly in the north-east of England, we have similar problems on public sector pay following the single status agreements. There have been attempts to do proper job evaluations and no-win, no-fee lawyers have come in to claim back pay. I dare say that it is a similar pattern to yours in Scotland. My constituency, Redcar, has been at the forefront of the issue. There are several High Court cases that have cost the ratepayers of Redcar a large amount of money because we tried quickly and honourably to do what we should, but it did not entirely work out.

We have the same difficulty as you, and questions arise about what we should do about tribunal processes. However, we hope to be able to use public procurement to address the difference between the public and private sectors. Something like a third of businesses in the UK bid for public contracts. They can be asked to disclose information about their pay gaps—and other desirable equalities information—as part of the public procurement process. We are still determining exactly what the level of leverage can be in that situation and how firm it can be, but we intend to use that tool if we possibly can.

We are also toying with asking private businesses to post their pay gaps—we can certainly ask, anyway. Somewhere deep in legislation there is a provision about disclosing information that applies to companies that are obliged to make annual returns to Companies House. It is not impossible that we could add extra powers to the equality bill to direct companies to disclose information about equality.

We are thinking of using public procurement leverage and, at the same time, exposing the pay gap. Harriet Harman, who leads on the bill, has made it clear that, if the pay gap does not begin to reduce as a result of those measures, we will reconsider whether some compulsion would be necessary, but we need to give business a fair crack at the whip first.

We have taken a particular interest in local authorities over the past few weeks. Does the UK Government consider itself to have a proactive role with reference to equal pay in the public sector beyond Whitehall—in particular, local authorities—or does it regard that as a matter for local government and one on which it cannot, or does not choose to, intervene or take action?

We intend to be proactive, at least in propagating what we expect public authorities to do and making the position clear. We have to lead with our chins.

On the specific question that you raise about local authority pay, we are keen that the local authorities that have not done their equal pay audits yet should get on with them. About 58 per cent of local authorities in England have done their audits but 42 per cent have not, and we are anxious that they should proceed. To encourage them, we have introduced some ability to capitalise the debts that some local authorities have had to confront in rectifying ancient pay gaps.

What action could or would the UK Government take if there was inadequate progress towards equal pay in local authorities?

We would expect the EHRC, which has the primary policing, implementation, monitoring, auditing and enforcement duties and powers, to take strong action. It has rights to issue various kinds of notice, which, if they are not adhered to, can be enforced through the courts.

The EHRC has said that it will undertake two investigations using its current powers. It has not announced the parameters of those investigations, but we understand that it intends to look at the financial services sector, which has quite a large gender pay gap, and the construction industry. The EHRC has powers to examine what is going on in particular sectors if there are seen to be systemic issues.

Can you give us any idea of the timescale of what you are talking about? You said that the EHRC has the power to monitor those matters. We are keen on the use of equality impact assessments on policies before, rather than after the fact. I understand the importance of outcomes, but it is important to avoid putting in place a policy that will make those outcomes worse, so the timing of the monitoring is significant.

Equality impact assessment timing?

I am sorry. Was the question about the EHRC's investigations?

In particular.

The EHRC has not announced the specific timing, but I understand that it may make something public on that shortly.

There is a certain degree of impatience because the EHRC is the policing power, so we are sitting waiting for it to do everything. Meanwhile, many things are happening. We received evidence that some single status pay agreements will not solve the problem but make it worse in the long term, so there is concern that the outcomes that we are waiting to see will be disappointing.

It is interesting that even those public sector compulsory pay orders that have been extensively gone through, as it were, are not necessarily working as we would have expected them to do.

The EHRC will shoulder its burdens; it has obviously taken a while to settle in to its new role. Those are the first major investigations that it has announced since it took on the role. It will have rights over the public and the private sectors, but those are limited. There will obviously still be scope for discrimination actions to be brought by individuals. There is also the open question whether there should be representative actions to speed up the process of rectifying problems.

Is there not an argument that we should increase the commission's capacity to do something more extensive and more quickly? Should we give it more backing, more powers and more money?

It has a sizeable budget and a sizeable staff, which it has to some extent recruited from the previous commissions so it has a strong and experienced staff complement. Trevor Phillips clearly gives a very powerful lead. We must give it the opportunity to get started. It has been wanting this tool of a single equality bill under its belt to get going and it is now seeing the bill's possibilities and starting to move. We must give it an opportunity to show what it can do and see what difference it can make. I would not, however, underestimate the role that individual actions through the tribunal will continue to have.

What discussion has there been with the Scottish Government and the other devolved bodies throughout the United Kingdom on their potential role in monitoring the Equality Act 2006 and equality duties? For example, in local government, a local authority currently develops a single outcome agreement in which its priorities are defined—they will be determined by the resources that come from the Scottish Government. My understanding is that there ought to be an EqIA on those agreements, because they will shape the priorities of local government. The minister will say that responsibility lies with local government and local government will say that this is a strategic report and therefore does not need a quality impact assessment. You can see that it will take for ever for the commission to go around all 32 local authorities.

Do you think that the Scottish Government should ask for evidence that an equality impact assessment has been done and block the proposal if one has not been done? I appreciate that there are technicalities that would be involved in doing that, but do you think that the Government should play such a role in ensuring that the duties are enforced?

I know that there has been pretty close working with the Scottish Government and the National Assembly for Wales at every stage. I believe that Harriet Harman had an informal meeting with the relevant people in Scotland some time ago and I am seeing a lot of stakeholders this afternoon, but I am not sure about the ways in which equality impact assessments might proactively be implemented through other Government agencies.

We are discussing the enforcement and monitoring of the new public sector duty with the commission and colleagues across government, including people in Scotland. As you say, the commission does not have the resources to consider every instance, but it tries to target its efforts in what it considers to be the key areas.

I would imagine that, if you were in receipt of a proposal on which an equality impact assessment had not been carried out, it would be reasonable for you, at a UK level, to say to whoever had submitted the proposal that you were concerned that they appeared not to have fulfilled their responsibilities and to ask them to consider the matter again. If you did not do that, you would have to wait for the commission to get around to doing something about the matter, which will take for ever.

I do not know that the situation is significantly different from the one that pertains to the implementation of the public service agreements and the local area agreements that we have in England between Government and local authorities, which involves a mixture of pressure of the carrot-and-stick variety from the regional development organisations or a Government office. Local authorities are obliged to enter into agreements to meet key performance indicators, and the driving process is iterative and on-going. I imagine that the same process would be effective if used in relation to the situation between the Scottish Government and local authorities in Scotland. Those methods are pretty tried and tested.

It is probably useful to underline the fact that the Solicitor General is here to answer questions about the proposed UK equality bill from the UK perspective.

I appreciate that, but as the Scottish ministers have a responsibility to promote equal opportunities, I am interested in the structures that might enable the Scottish Government and the UK Government to work together to do that.

I suppose that there will have been dialogue between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations.

There has been, yes. I am sure that the Scottish Government will suggest specific mechanisms that it feels are most appropriate and we will discuss those together. The process will continue in that way.

Do you see a danger that the single equality proposals in the bill will create a hierarchy of equalities in which there will be a clash between, for example, religion and belief and gender equality? If so, how is it proposed to address any such potential conflict?

No, I do not envisage any such hierarchy of rights. Indeed, part of the purpose of the legislation is to streamline and make equal the equalities. For example, at the moment, although it is unlawful to discriminate against me with regard to the delivery of goods and services on the basis that I am a woman, it is not unlawful to do so on the basis of my age. Currently, therefore, there is a hierarchy of equalities, but that will change. However, the religious duty and the LGBT duty coexist now, to all practical purposes, and nothing will change significantly in that regard after the bill is passed. The issue involves balancing one right against another and working out a solution either formally, informally or through the courts. It will not be any harder to do that once the bill has brought together in one place the provisions that already exist.

This question jumps sideways to an issue raised by Bòrd na Gàidhlig. It has told us that some Welsh speakers who are working in the private sector in Wales have been told not to use the Welsh language when speaking to each other or to members of the public who want to do business with them in their native language. Indeed, some native speakers have faced disciplinary action. Will you confirm that any attempt to prevent the use of a minority language such as Scots or Gaelic in the workplace would be prohibited under the single equality bill?

I do not know about those events, although there have been conversations about their having taken place. It would be for the employer to explain why such a requirement was justified and for the courts or tribunal to decide, depending on the facts of the case, whether the exclusion was reasonable. On the face of it, however, that would not be easy to justify.

Certain newspapers frequently report on equality issues with reference to political correctness, usually with bizarre and peculiar stories to highlight their point. Do you think that those newspapers' approach damages attempts to engender greater equality? If so, might the Government take corrective action? Or is it fair for newspapers to claim that questionable actions have sometimes been taken in the name of equality and that there is therefore a need for greater clarity on what actions are permitted?

I am sure that there is a need for greater clarity, which will emanate from bringing all the legislation together in one act rather than having it spread around nine acts and several thousand pages of regulations. It should be easier for the public to understand what is and is not required. Undoubtedly, certain elements of the press have made hay about equalities, rightly or wrongly, in many circumstances. I have no better idea than you how accurate they have been, and they have done the same with human rights, using the "political correctness gone mad" line of argument.

The bill has been drafted after enormous consultation with rafts of stakeholders from special interest groups and the public. One hopes that everybody knows it is coming. It will go through the parliamentary process openly, and it will then be followed by lots and lots of guidance to ensure that it is clear. I hope that we will be able to clarify the situation so that the sting is taken out of the more fanciful allegations made by some of the press.

There have been odd uses not so much of equalities legislation but certainly of human rights legislation, which is in the same vein. In a case in my part of the country, someone alleged that having to move their wheelie bin to the front gate for it to be emptied was forced labour and therefore contrary to an article in the European convention on human rights. Of course it was taken up by the press, even though it was completely fanciful. The case of somebody who refused to come down from a roof and had to be given a Big Mac because otherwise his human rights would have been damaged was also completely fanciful. It is difficult to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

I suppose fast food is bad for you, and he was forced to eat a Big Mac.

That was not the issue, but it is a good point—was it good for his human rights to be given a Big Mac? It was a case of abuse of what people see as political correctness gone mad. Often they cannot tell political correctness from health and safety observation. Clarity will be a watchword, and we will do what we can to prevent those cases from happening again.

How does the bill relate to European equality legislation? Are some provisions, for example on age discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services, included to comply with European legislation, or are we getting ahead of what is required by Europe?

The bill will certainly be made to comply entirely with advances in European legislation. Are we ahead of European legislation?

The draft directive covers the grounds of disability, age and religion and belief, most of which UK law covers. Of course, the forthcoming equality bill will fill in some gaps, such as age discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services, as the minister said. UK law covers many, but not all, of the domains that the directive will cover. The new bill will plug some of the gaps. We are examining closely how the directive maps against our legislation and we will shortly issue a consultation document in which we will draw attention to the differences and seek views on the potential impact.

What is the justification for excluding under-18s from protection under the bill?

The argument is the same as that which we have already made. An abundance of legislation and responsibility deals with the education, promotion and support of people who are under 18. The sensitive and best way forward is to leave that as it is.

I understand that education and children's services will be excluded from the integrated equality duty. For that purpose, how are children's services defined?

I am afraid that I cannot define children's services at present, but they will probably encompass what would reasonably be expected. Are you worried about something being in or out?

Save the Children in Scotland asked how children's services were defined. If someone from your department who is working on the bill can clarify the definition, I can convey that to Save the Children. That would help.

We are still considering the definition, but we will write to let you know the position.

Having that as part of the process would help.

We discussed with Harriet Harman trade union equality representatives, who support employers and employees and negotiate to achieve best practice on equality and diversity in the workplace. To be effective, they need a statutory basis, so why has the Government not legislated to give them statutory rights?

There is no doubt that we are big supporters of equality reps. We have put much money—about £1.25 million in the past three years—from the union transformation fund into them.

The figure is £1.5 million.

There we are—the amount is better than I said.

The process that is being followed is the same as that with union learning reps. The reps must be formally evaluated—that is realistic and that process is under way—before they can be put on a statutory basis. They look as if they are doing an extremely good job, but a formal evaluation is imperative before we move on. That is why they are not being put on a statutory basis. That is in process, but they have not been around long enough for that.

So that is in process and such evaluation will be undertaken?

Yes. I have no doubt that that evaluation will steer what happens next with union equality reps.

I call Bill Kidd. I apologise for not calling you earlier.

Do not worry—that is okay.

Do you plan to use public procurement as a lever to achieve equality in the private sector? We know that the Government hopes to implement as much of the bill as it can itself, but procurement provides a carrot and a stick. I do not think—and I do not believe that it is your view—that the private sector should get off the hook, so procurement might provide a way of pushing it along the line.

That chimes with the public sector duty. It is probably important for all public authorities that have such duties to ensure that they are delivered as best they can be through contracted-out services and through their contractors, for instance. We are considering what it is open to us to do. We would like to do as much as possible to use procurement as a major lever.

We are a little hamstrung by European procurement rules, which apply to contractors who are not based in the UK as well as those who are. The Office of Government Commerce is working on a guide that will help us to know what leverage is, and is not, available. That is linked to our plan to have a fairly simple template to invite businesses to post on their websites information on their pay gap, disability employment, race employment and so on.

We also have an ambition to engineer a kite mark that will indicate to private businesses that have obtained it that they are welcome to participate in public procurement. I know that a good deal of work of that kind is being done in some regions in anticipation of the bill. In my part of the north-east of England, local authorities are trying to put together common procurement demands so that small businesses are not overburdened and do not have to prepare three different kinds of bid for three adjacent local authorities. Some equalities requirements will be included in those demands, to ensure that people are guaranteed a look-in. We will do what we can with public procurement, because it is a good tool for us.

The equalities review that was chaired by Trevor Phillips stated that there should be a new definition of equality because

"we do not have a consistent and clear understanding of the causes of inequality and what to do about it".

Does the bill reflect that new definition of equality?

You should ask Trevor Phillips to try to define equality.

I am giving you the opportunity to do so, almost as a treat.

That would be an interesting exercise. Like Trevor Phillips, we are seeking broader ways of speaking of equality. One fairly obvious way of doing so is to look at socio-economic deprivation, which is not really another strand of inequality but it is an issue nonetheless. If you have an act that is designed to end inequalities in all strands, socio-economic deprivation becomes the elephant in the room.

The Government will publish a white paper on social mobility and socio-economic deprivation quite soon. We will probably look at the issue separately from the bill, but there may be links to it. We are not unaware of the problem of white working-class children and underprivileged estates. My constituency of Redcar is named after Redcar town, which is literally split in two by Redcar racecourse. The area to the west of the racecourse is deprived, whereas the area to the east of it is much more affluent. The two sides of the town have very different results in education, achievement and health. We must tackle those issues and are looking at all sorts of ways of doing so—one may be to focus on place. However, socio-economic deprivation does not fall entirely within the four corners of the bill.

That completes questioning from members. Would you like to make some final points?

The session has been fairly comprehensive—I have enjoyed it and felt pressed at times. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make clear what our ambitions are. I hope that I have done that.

Thank you for taking the trouble to come up here in adverse weather conditions to give us a full briefing on the UK Equality Bill. I am glad that the session has at least provided you with the opportunity to clarify on the record the comments that you were reported to have made to The Sunday Times.

We were due to move into private session at this point but, given that we are running a bit late, I propose that we consider our draft report to the Justice Committee on the Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Bill and our approach to the inquiry into female offenders in the criminal justice system at our next meeting on 16 December? Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Members should pass on to the clerks any comments that they have on the draft report on the Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Bill, to expedite matters at our next meeting.

Meeting closed at 12:25.